


Something Unexpected in the Garden

by Oliver9345



Category: Original Work
Genre: Dogs, Introducing new characters every single chapter apparently, Other, Weird alien objects
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-02
Updated: 2020-03-15
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:42:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22986538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oliver9345/pseuds/Oliver9345
Summary: Ms. Rutherford and her dog find something in the garden.
Kudos: 1





	1. Chapter 1

They took the same path every day, Ms. Rutherford and Biscuit: out the front door, then two blocks west, one more to the north, follow the road until it took a turn to the right, and through the overgrown rusty iron door in the wall. It squealed when it opened as if it had never known oil in the course of its hundred-year-long existence, which, of course, it hadn’t. Behind this door was a small garden known to just two souls on the planet. Like the door which guarded it, the garden had remained mostly untouched by human hands. The exception being the fold-up chair that Ms. Rutherford had placed there once she could no longer stand for the entirety of their visits comfortably. 

As he always did, Biscuit bolted through the open door the moment the gap was wide enough to fit his body through. Ms. Rutherford pushed the door open the rest of the way before following herself. She took a deep breath as she watched Biscuit check the entire garden for squirrels. The moment she had sat down in her chair, Biscuit was sitting in front of her, his eyes focused on her jacket pocket. More specifically, he was focussed on the pocket she kept a positively ancient tennis ball in. Ms. Rutherford smiled and in one practiced motion, pulled the ball out and threw it towards the far corner of the garden. 

The ball bounced twice before disappearing into the shrubbery. Biscuit followed not far behind. Ms. Rutherford was greeted only by the rustling of the leaves for several moments before Biscuit returned to her. However what he had brought back was not the ball she had thrown. Nor was it a stick, the kind Biscuit was so fond of. Instead he held in his mouth something that could only be described as something living. Ms. Rutherford’s first thought was that Biscuit had caught a bird or rodent of some kind. However, neither of those things were prone to glowing a vibrant blue as the object in Biscuit's mouth was. 

“Drop it.” Biscuit did as he was told, laying down the object in his mouth, then he backed up and sat down, waiting for the game of fetch to continue. As he released it, the object stopped glowing. With the blinding light gone, Ms. Rutherford could now see the object for what it was, not that she understood what she was seeing. 

Such an understanding would likely have required degrees in physics and engineering, as well as a penchant for tinkering with things she shouldn't. However, she had something that was nearly as good: a lick of common sense. Ms. Rutherford decided she didn’t need to know what this thing was to know it was bad news. With the power of someone letting the call to adventure go to voicemail and then blocking its number, she picked up the small object and threw it over the fence and out of the small sanctuary she shared with her dog. 

Biscuit whined at the disposal of his new toy. 

“Oh, go and find your ball.” He did and they played fetch for another half hour before once again returning home. 


	2. Chapter 2

Jeffery Sachs was, despite his name, not a monetarily successful man. He slept on a friend’s couch. He worked at a newspaper stand he didn’t own himself. And yet, he was mostly a happy individual. Some people that met him said that it was infectious. Others were unable to feel those same effects as they were too busy trying to avoid the strong smell of someone who partakes of too much marijuana and not enough showers. Neither of these things seemed to deter his customers. Most were not around him long enough to be bothered by the smell. It also helped that, by the nature of the news stand, there was always a counter between them. So his cheery demeanor won out and the customer’s day was invariably brightened as they picked up their daily fix of news, coffee, or some other morning routine. 

On this particular Tuesday morning, Jeffery was cutting through an alley between two 8 foot tall brick walls. He didn’t know what was on the other side of either wall and up until this very moment he hadn’t really cared. However, just then his foot struck something small and metal and kicked it down the alley. Flip-flops are perhaps the worst type of shoes to have on when you kick something outside of wearing no shoes at all. So, when Jeffery kicked the small metal object, his attention was rather focused on something that was not the small metal object as he had just caused himself no small amount of pain. So it is forgivable that he did not see the object he kicked glow as it moved. Nor did he see the 16 small legs that unfolded, 8 on either side, to stop it from spinning. Finally, he did not see the object skid to a stop before all 16 of the legs retracted and the glow faded. 

What Jeffery did see is that the object looked unusual. He also knew that it was real, unlike some of the other more unusual things he saw, as he had just, very painfully, proved he could touch it. 

“Cool,” was what he said out loud. He then picked up the object, stuffed it in one of his hoodie’s seemingly bottomless pockets, and continued his journey to work. 

  
  


Something was wrong with Biscuit. Ms. Rutherford knew that the mind was the first thing to go in her old age, but she was sure that her dog was not supposed to be green. Golden Retrievers were supposed to be golden, weren’t they? 

“You do know you’re green, don’t you?” she asked Biscuit. His tail slapped the ground twice at the sound of her voice, but otherwise he didn’t respond. She remembered then that dogs were colorblind for the most part. “Of course you don’t.” Biscuit’s tail thumped against the floor. She shrugged and decided to get him to a vet one of these days. Aside from the color, it didn’t seem like it was bothering him any. 

“Come on then, you green lump,” she said affectionately. “It’s time for dinner.” Biscuit barked once and followed her into the kitchen, his tail wagging furiously. 


	3. Chapter 3

Ella Hampton was an alright name if she did say so herself. It wasn’t too flashy, but it wasn’t something that could have used to bully her when she was still in school. It was something to be grateful to her parents for, she supposed. No amount of blood relation could convince them to help her through business school, however. She shrugged and walked out the front door and down the street. Those student loans weren’t going to pay themselves off. 

On the way to work, she always made precisely one stop: the newspaper stand. There she exchanged words with the man who worked there and bought a coffee. She was never sure whether it was the coffee or the man that made her feel better, but she suspected it was a combination of the two. It was very good coffee. 

Today the man, whose name was Jeffery if she remembered correctly, was fiddling with something when she arrived. He put it away too quickly for her to get a good look at it. 

“The usual, El?” he asked. She nodded in response, but he was already making her order.She had no idea how he remembered everyone’s orders, much less their names. Though the more impressive feat was making the best coffee in this part of town in a newspaper stand, while there was a Starbucks just down the street. Ella was shaken from her thoughts of Jeffery’s oddities by the feeling of a warm paper cup being placed into her hands. She paid and left, thinking no more on the matter for the rest of the day. 

The following day, Ella got a better look at whatever it was that Jeffery was tinkering with. It was small, rounded, and made of metal. It fit in the palm of Jeffery’s hand, where he was bracing it in order to use the screwdriver in his other hand as a crowbar. 

“Whatcha got there, Jeff?” she asked. 

“I’m not entirely sure,” he replied. “Maybe you’ll have a better idea.” He put down the screwdriver and offered the object to her. She took it and inspected it, turning it this way and that as Jeffery busied himself with the coffee machine, no doubt making her usual. She noted that it seemed to be made up of triangular plates, though she couldn’t make out what was underneath them between the cracks between them. She also wasn’t sure what was holding them together as there were no bolts or screws visible. Whatever it was, it was a mystery to Ella. 

“Sorry, Jeff, I ain’t got a clue.” She traded the object for the steaming cup of coffee on the counter. “One of the techs at work might know, though. I’ll ask around.” She left a 5 on the counter and waved as she left on her way to work. Jeff picked up the screwdriver and went back to prying. 

Biscuit had kept his green color despite Ms. Rutherford giving him more baths than he had ever needed before over the past few days. The vet had said it was certainly odd, but that he couldn’t see that it was harming him at all, so that she might as well not bother. Fat lot of good that visit had done them, Ms. Rutherford thought. Then again he had charged her 50 pounds for a routine check-up, so it wasn’t like she was going back to that vet anyways. 

She was sipping a brandy in her favorite armchair when she noticed it. Biscuit was laying on the ground near the fireplace. It was one of the perks of having a home as old as she was. Biscuit’s tails were slowly wagging. _Wait,_ _tails?_ Ms. Rutherford put her glass down and looked again. Then she took off her glasses, cleaned them, put them back onto her nose and peered once more at her bright green dog. Her bright green dog with two tails. “You had to go pick up the glowing metal object, didn’t you?” Biscuit huffed contentedly. 

Ella and Jeffery had a number of 5 sentence conversations about the strange metal object over the coming weeks. Most of these were while Ella was waiting on her coffee order, though once she stayed and drank her coffee at the stand while the two of them swapped more and more fantastic ideas about its origin. At the end of that he had just given her the object saying that she had more use for it than he did. Not that Ella had any idea what it did, but it was nice to look at, so she kept it on her desk at work as a trinket. And when she looked at it, she thought of the newspaper stand and the comfort its keeper brought her. The next day she left a slip of paper with her number along with the money when she paid for her coffee.


End file.
